I'm not a fan of movie soundtracks. Wild Target, however, was something else
I'm not a fan of movie soundtracks. Wild Target, however, was something else
IKNOW IT'S not a brand new film but have you seen Wild Target? It's a British `action-comedy', starring Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt. It also has Rupert Grint (he of the Harry Potter series fame) and Rupert Everett. In the film, Nighy is a paid assassin in keeping with his family business (his father was one and his mother wants him to be as good if not better). Blunt is a target that he is assigned to kill but that assignment goes awry and it all roller-coasters into an eccentric, action-filled 98 minutes, which if it were not for the excellent acting by Nighy and Blunt, could have gone steadily downhill because of tired gags and a completely absurd plot. Although it was released last year, I watched Wild Target off a DVD only last week and it wasn't just the stellar performances by Nighy and the greatly talented Blunt that kept my finger off the remote's stop button. It was also the music. I'm not hugely into movie soundtracks and I especially detest the ones that are “composed“ in entirety by some big name or the other. But on Wild Target that was not the case. The film was so well held together by around 15 tracks (many of them by musicians or bands that were new to me) that I seriously considered getting the soundtrack album or, at least, exploring the music a bit more.
The first band on Wild Target that made me sit up and listen closely was Fishtank Ensemble whose song was called Mehum Mato. Fishtank Ensemble are an American band but with heavy eastern European influences.
Their songs, like the one I heard, often have lyrics that are in languages such as Serbian and their music is multicultural flamenco, Roma (gypsy) and even Japanese folk. Their music is fiery and high-energy although they use mainly acoustic instruments violin, banjolele, flamenco guitar, double bass and a saw (yes, a saw!).
Fishtank Ensemble are based in California but their music has been described as “cross-pollinated gypsy music“. I'm not a great fan of world music but the multi-ethnic, genre-straddling nature of Fishtank's sound led me to search for something more by them. I found Woman in Sin, their third full-length album, and was floored by it. It is an eclectic bunch of 12 songs, which demonstrate the band members' diverse backgrounds: vocalist Ursula Knudsen is a former opera singer; guitarist Doug Smolens' journey into flamenco territory was via a stint in punk and hard rock; and bass player Djordje Stijepovic played with gypsy bands in Eastern Europe in his teens before moving to rock bands. Thanks to Wild Target, I'd discovered a great band.
And it wasn't the only one. There were other gems. Of course, there were musicians that we've heard before. Such as the Russian-born but New York-based singer-songwriter Regina Spektor whose catchy Hotel Song (“Come in, come in/ Come into my world/ I've got to show/ Show show you/ Come into my bed/ I've got to know/ Know know you“) is on the soundtrack. As is American dream pop duo Beach House's lovely song, Wedding Bell (“Humming/you're humming tomorrow's nursery rhyme/ but you're singing the only words you know/ would you cry if I lie 'til the day...“). But it was the musicians that I hadn't heard before that made Wild Target's soundtrack such a great aid to discovering new music. I'd never heard Imelda May she's an Irish singer whose featured song, Johnny Got a Boom Boom, can make you an instant fan. It's funny and is replete with double entendres.
Besides, May has a great voice.
Sadly, I've still not been able to lay my hands on any of her albums but I shall keep trying.
Women aren't the only singers featured on the Wild Target soundtrack but it was yet another woman singersongwriter, Yael Naim, who impressed me.
Naim is Israeli but born in Paris and her fea tured song New Soul was used by Apple for its MacBook Air ad campaign. But Naim (one critic described her as having a voice “as rich as molten chocolate“), as I discovered, is multi-lingual and sings in French, Hebrew and English I tried looking for her last year's album She Was A Boy but couldn't get it. I found her eponymous second album, which has 13 songs, many of them in English, including (surprise!) a cover of Britney Spears' Toxic.
Wild Target isn't a film that you ought to take seriously. After all, it is about the middle-aged scion of a family whose business is professional assassination and his target-turned-lover is an attractive audacious thief. It is, as what we would call in Bombay, a “pure time-pass“ film as most films in the action-comedy genre usually are. But the bonus clearly is the soundtrack, which led me to discover some fine new musicians.
I'm not a fan of movie soundtracks. Wild Target, however, was something else
IKNOW IT'S not a brand new film but have you seen Wild Target? It's a British `action-comedy', starring Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt. It also has Rupert Grint (he of the Harry Potter series fame) and Rupert Everett. In the film, Nighy is a paid assassin in keeping with his family business (his father was one and his mother wants him to be as good if not better). Blunt is a target that he is assigned to kill but that assignment goes awry and it all roller-coasters into an eccentric, action-filled 98 minutes, which if it were not for the excellent acting by Nighy and Blunt, could have gone steadily downhill because of tired gags and a completely absurd plot. Although it was released last year, I watched Wild Target off a DVD only last week and it wasn't just the stellar performances by Nighy and the greatly talented Blunt that kept my finger off the remote's stop button. It was also the music. I'm not hugely into movie soundtracks and I especially detest the ones that are “composed“ in entirety by some big name or the other. But on Wild Target that was not the case. The film was so well held together by around 15 tracks (many of them by musicians or bands that were new to me) that I seriously considered getting the soundtrack album or, at least, exploring the music a bit more.
The first band on Wild Target that made me sit up and listen closely was Fishtank Ensemble whose song was called Mehum Mato. Fishtank Ensemble are an American band but with heavy eastern European influences.
Their songs, like the one I heard, often have lyrics that are in languages such as Serbian and their music is multicultural flamenco, Roma (gypsy) and even Japanese folk. Their music is fiery and high-energy although they use mainly acoustic instruments violin, banjolele, flamenco guitar, double bass and a saw (yes, a saw!).
Fishtank Ensemble are based in California but their music has been described as “cross-pollinated gypsy music“. I'm not a great fan of world music but the multi-ethnic, genre-straddling nature of Fishtank's sound led me to search for something more by them. I found Woman in Sin, their third full-length album, and was floored by it. It is an eclectic bunch of 12 songs, which demonstrate the band members' diverse backgrounds: vocalist Ursula Knudsen is a former opera singer; guitarist Doug Smolens' journey into flamenco territory was via a stint in punk and hard rock; and bass player Djordje Stijepovic played with gypsy bands in Eastern Europe in his teens before moving to rock bands. Thanks to Wild Target, I'd discovered a great band.
And it wasn't the only one. There were other gems. Of course, there were musicians that we've heard before. Such as the Russian-born but New York-based singer-songwriter Regina Spektor whose catchy Hotel Song (“Come in, come in/ Come into my world/ I've got to show/ Show show you/ Come into my bed/ I've got to know/ Know know you“) is on the soundtrack. As is American dream pop duo Beach House's lovely song, Wedding Bell (“Humming/you're humming tomorrow's nursery rhyme/ but you're singing the only words you know/ would you cry if I lie 'til the day...“). But it was the musicians that I hadn't heard before that made Wild Target's soundtrack such a great aid to discovering new music. I'd never heard Imelda May she's an Irish singer whose featured song, Johnny Got a Boom Boom, can make you an instant fan. It's funny and is replete with double entendres.
Besides, May has a great voice.
Sadly, I've still not been able to lay my hands on any of her albums but I shall keep trying.
Women aren't the only singers featured on the Wild Target soundtrack but it was yet another woman singersongwriter, Yael Naim, who impressed me.
Naim is Israeli but born in Paris and her fea tured song New Soul was used by Apple for its MacBook Air ad campaign. But Naim (one critic described her as having a voice “as rich as molten chocolate“), as I discovered, is multi-lingual and sings in French, Hebrew and English I tried looking for her last year's album She Was A Boy but couldn't get it. I found her eponymous second album, which has 13 songs, many of them in English, including (surprise!) a cover of Britney Spears' Toxic.
Wild Target isn't a film that you ought to take seriously. After all, it is about the middle-aged scion of a family whose business is professional assassination and his target-turned-lover is an attractive audacious thief. It is, as what we would call in Bombay, a “pure time-pass“ film as most films in the action-comedy genre usually are. But the bonus clearly is the soundtrack, which led me to discover some fine new musicians.
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